


the dreams i've had

by wistfullywishing



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, But also, Dangerous Liaisons, Death, Dreams, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, M/M, Memory Loss, NO DEATH, Secret Relationship, is there really, yet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:45:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9245801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wistfullywishing/pseuds/wistfullywishing
Summary: Baekhyun is old now, and when he looks back on the period of his life that he and Chanyeol spent chasing each other into dark corners, Baekhyun knows it was the beginning of the dreams that changed everything.





	

When Byun Baekhyun is first introduced properly to the man who’s been his fuck buddy for the past three months, he isn’t surprised. Baekhyun isn't surprised at all because he's suspected the truth for a while. Only a fellow agent would have been clever and calculating enough to hide their tracks the morning after the very first night they’d spent together, drunk at a party, as Chanyeol had done, making it seem like he'd never been there at all. Baekhyun has since wondered if maybe it was more than pure chance that brought them together again a week later at Baekhyun’s favorite coffee shop. When they started an established pattern of sleeping together, Baekhyun had recognized bits and pieces of his own training every once in awhile in the way Chanyeol was always tight-lipped about what it was he did, redirecting Baekhyun’s insistent questioning with kisses and whispers that soon turned into more and had Baekhyun forgetting what it was that he set about figuring out in the first place. It’s not that Chanyeol was obvious about hiding something, it’s just that the absence of anything but flawless poise in everything the other male did had Baekhyun suspicious for the longest time because there isn’t anyone in the world that perfect, not even a trained assassin playing the part of average citizen. He should have ended it, but he didn’t because Chanyeol had been extraordinary at sex. Despite all the sweet promises, Baekhyun had imagined that the whole thing was an act. Still, he can’t blame Chanyeol because they were both using the other as a cover. What they have established isn’t real.

Baekhyun thinks that their formal acquaintance with one another will mark the unraveling of their established fake relationship. It’s a highly enforced rule: no affiliations within the agency. What they do is dangerous, and they can’t afford distractions. There’s no room for love in their line of work. And the consequences if they're caught are deadly. So, he expects that their knowing each other’s true identities will be the termination of their lustful encounters.

It isn't.

They continue this dangerous game of theirs, hunting down targets by day and warming each other’s beds by night. Baekhyun thinks, deep down, that all of it is a tragedy waiting to happen. He believes Chanyeol does too, and he wonders what’s keeping both of them subtly making their way to the other after every group mission and tending to each other’s scrapes and cuts in the darkness every night. All they can do is hold off on the inevitable for as long as possible. Since there’s no way to come out unscathed, they can only hope that they come out alive, at the very least.

 _Why don't we break it off_ , Chanyeol murmurs softly one night while he traces Baekhyun’s skin with his pinky, the candlelight casting shadows over their skin. _It's what's best. Why do we continue to risk it?_ And Baekhyun can't tell him why, doesn’t know how to phrase what he’s feeling, but he knows he doesn’t want to let go of whatever this arrangement they have is, so he just pulls Chanyeol down for another kiss.

Sometime around the date that marks the sixth month of their liaisons, Baekhyun begins having dreams.

\---

Baekhyun is old now, and when he looks back on the period of his life that he and Chanyeol spent chasing each other into dark corners, Baekhyun knows it was the beginning of the dreams that changed everything.

\---

A month after their sixth month anniversary, there’s an explosion within the agency headquarters. No one knows how the bomb got there. Baekhyun guesses it probably came from a rogue within the agency, but there’s no time to dwell on it as he dives for cover. He hopes and desperately prays to whatever gods there are that Chanyeol is alive and well, before it occurs to him to ponder why he even cares so much in the first place.

When the building has been evacuated, Baekhyun searches for the one head that's supposed to stand out above the rest. At first he doesn't think too much of it when he's not immediately able to spot Chanyeol, but when the executives start doing a head count, ice runs through his veins. It's not until he latches onto the wrist of his supervisor and tells him that the building isn't empty yet, and they can't leave, that the truth becomes apparent as the older man shakes his head and gestures to the smoke rising from the rubble. “If they're not out here, they're dead.” And then Baekhyun’s heart realizes. It has always been real. And now it's too late.

\---

Baekhyun is indescribably happy that it didn't end like that for them, and he wonders why he never realized the true depth of what he felt for Chanyeol.

\---

Three weeks after the first dream, Baekhyun and his division are running through the streets of a government complex when the gunshots begin. He sees a member of his battalion go down from the corner of his eye and he feels brief regret as he keeps running, but he knows at this point there’s nothing he can do. Baekhyun thinks he’s going to make it out of this one, until more hooded figures appear from around the corner and he has to slow his movements. As he’s considering his options, it strikes him that the figures are dressed not in the gear of an opposing firm, but they’re wearing the exact same uniforms as himself. He opens his mouth to ask _what the fuck is going on_ , but his tongue feels like it falls out of his mouth when his eyes catch on a piece of metal around the wrist of the leader of the men surrounding him, and _why is this hooded man wearing the bracelet he gave Chanyeol a week ago?_

The answer becomes clear when he hears a barely there whisper. “I’m sorry, Baekhyun. I wish I didn’t have to do this.” And Baekhyun doesn’t have any more time to think about _how_ and _why_ because there’s a rush of air, and it’s so quick that by the time his brain has registered the noise the bullet is already piercing his skull.

\---

Even thinking about it now, decades later, the second dream still gives Baekhyun chills. But it’s alright, because he knows the truth: that somewhere along the line, he wasn’t the only one who fell in love.

\---

Baekhyun can’t take this torment any longer, stealing kisses in dark corridors and walking on eggshells everywhere within the agency. So, he decides to resign with his recent leg injury as a plausible reason so his supervisors don’t suspect of his affair. He Chanyeol work out an arrangement relatively quickly for people who are known to be argumentative; they’ll meet up when both of them are dispatched. In order to avoid unnecessary suspicion, Baekhyun tells Chanyeol to go two months after him.

The resigning procedure goes smoothly and Baekhyun makes it out. Before he knows it, two months have flown by and he’s anxiously waiting for his lover, stopping at the agreed location every single day at the same time to see if Chanyeol has made it out yet. He doesn’t think anything of it when Chanyeol is a day late because after all, the agency is unpredictable, and something must have come up. A day late turns into a week late, then a month. After three months of crushing disappointment every day, Baekhyun accepts that Chanyeol isn’t coming. And he tries not to dwell on it because there are only two reasons why Chanyeol wouldn’t come. Baekhyun almost hopes that Chanyeol is dead, because if he didn’t die on a mission, then he willingly abandoned Baekhyun. And that’s too painful to consider.

\---

That dream no longer holds the same force to it, because Baekhyun knows now that Chanyeol would never willingly leave him.

\---

Baekhyun and Chanyeol try the termination of assignment plan again. This time, for reasons he doesn’t share to the other male, he forces Chanyeol (with the help of many kisses) to go first. Everything seems to go smoothly, because he doesn’t hear whispers of Chanyeol’s name linked to any tragedy after Chanyeol’s release. When it’s Baekhyun’s turn, the agency agrees, no questions asked, and he feels relief and confidence that this time, everything will work out. Baekhyun is almost done filling out all the according paperwork when he turns to the last page and stops. His boss notices his pause from across the room and begins speaking again, walking towards Baekhyun with slow steps that suggest a sort of different danger.

“Oh, Baekhyun, I almost forgot to mention. We have a new policy. Sorry Baekhyun, I like you a lot, but in order to preserve the uttermost secrecy of this organization and what we do, we’ve instilled a new procedure. Every agent walking out of here will undergo memory modification to get their memories of the time they spent here removed. Don't worry, we’ll leave your basic memories of your family and friends and the outside world, but we'll have to take out all your memories of everyone affiliated with this organization. Can’t have you recognizing our assassins anywhere, can we?” A chuckle. His supervisor says all of this with a glint in his eye, and Baekhyun thinks, _fuck_ , because he didn't prepare for this, didn’t even know of this development. As his boss watches his inner turmoil gleefully, more people rush into the room to apprehend him, and Baekhyun realizes. His boss knows about him and Chanyeol, everything they’ve tried so meticulously to hide. And this is their punishment.

Some time later, Baekhyun is at his favorite coffee shop when he sees a man that he thinks looks familiar. He’s has just come in the shop with a girl, and they look so happy together it’s almost disgusting. For some reason, Baekhyun thinks that the way the man moves reminds him of something, but it’s fuzzy at the edges of his memory and he can’t recall anything. Seeing the man lean down to kiss his girlfriend sweetly brings a wave of sadness to Baekhyun’s emotions, and he doesn’t even know why. He’s still trying to figure out which celebrity the man must remind him of when he leaves the coffee shop.

\---

Baekhyun is glad it didn’t end like that, either.

\---

The real outcome isn’t any one of the aforementioned. In the end, Baekhyun, and with a lot of kissing and frantic convincing, Chanyeol,  both make careful plans to resign from their careers. Baekhyun is able to procure two vials of memory restoration potion, stolen from the stocks of the agency when no one is looking. The pair labels them with notes stressing the importance of drinking them immediately when they wake and an address.  On a day when a large fraction of the company files requests to leave after witnessing unspeakable horrors on the last mission, Chanyeol and Baekhyun simply slip into the crowd. They sneak the potions into their pockets, knowing the agency will be too self confident to check, thinking whatever would be found by secret agents who’d had their memories erased wouldn’t make much sense anyway, and they share one last glance full of adoration before walking into separate memory modification facilities. Each of them hopes for the best when they lose consciousness as the procedures begin.

When Baekhyun wakes up in a small house, he knows he doesn’t live here because the walls are painted with a color he hates and would never have chosen himself. When he checks his entire body carefully for clues of why he would be here, he finds a vial labeled with a note written in what is unmistakably his own handwriting, and he downs it without a second thought. Nothing immediate happens, and so Baekhyun goes about his day, wandering the house and seeing what he can find in the kitchen to live off of until he figures out what's going on. It’s not until the dead of the night when he’s laying back on the bare mattress with a scratchy blanket to offer feeble protection from the winter chills when he gets back his first memory of another pair of lips on his own while obnoxious pop music plays in the background. And Baekhyun knows that this is more complicated than he originally thought and patiently waits for more.

A month after he drank the restoration potion he had hidden for himself and found, his memory has fully returned, and Baekhyun finally understands the importance of the address he discovered along with the potion. He wastes no time in making his way there, and when he sees a tall, lanky body waiting for him, his heart beats so quickly he thinks he could die. The other man finally spots him, and there’s a moment where neither of them move, each gauging the other’s reaction. The silence is broken quickly because Baekhyun is running towards Chanyeol and he’s thinking about what he might’ve spent the rest of his life missing if the walls of the place he’s been living hadn’t been coincidentally painted that horrid color, and Chanyeol is running towards him, and everything has come full circle.

That day, as Baekhyun and Chanyeol find their way back to each other at the entrance of the apartment complex where they had first met, tears stream down both of their faces as they share a tight hug, one with the promise of never letting go. Relief and astonishment linger in the air, along with marvel at the circumstances that have brought them together time after time against all odds. They walk out, hand in hand, without looking back, only forward.

Shortly after, the two flee the country, each with new identities. Chanyeol finds them a home in the countryside, away from all the chaos of the city, and they settle down in a quiet suburban neighborhood, vowing to spend the rest of their life together there. Every once in awhile, when they see news of another strong political figure getting assassinated on the small television set in their secluded home, they share a knowing look,  usually followed by a reassuring smile and a tender kiss. 

\---

During every single one of his waking moments and at night right before he falls asleep with Chanyeol’s arm wrapped protectively around his waist and his body curled around him, Baekhyun is glad it ended up like it did.

**Author's Note:**

> So kinda to clear it up bc i know i wasn't very good at making it clear, the tragedy scenarios are the dreams that baekhyun has that kinda prompt him to realize, oh god one of these will happen someday that makes him quit and drag chanyeol along so they can settle into a quiet life of domesticity together :DD


End file.
